legs, but the heads.... They're Wyverns!"

Wyverns. Shann liked the sound of that word; to his mind it well fitted
the Warlockian witches. And the one they were watching in action
continued her steady backward retreat, rolling her bemused captive out
of the water. What emerged into the blaze of sunlight was one of those
fork-tailed sea dwellers such as the Terrans had seen die after the
storm. The thing crawled out of the shallows, its eyes focused in a
blind stare on the praying hands of the Wyvern.

She halted, well up on the sand, when the body of her victim or
prisoner--Shann was certain that the fork-tail was one or the
other--was completely out of the water. Then, with lightning speed, she
dropped her hands.

Instantly fork-tail came to life. Fanged jaws snapped. Aroused, the
beast was the incarnation of evil rage, a rage which had a measure of
intelligence to direct it into deadly action. And facing it, seemingly
unarmed and defenseless, were the slender, fragile Wyverns.

Yet none of the small group of natives made any attempt to escape. Shann
thought them suicidal in their indifference as fork-tail, short legs
sending the fine sand flying in a dust cloud, made a rush toward its
enemies.

The Wyvern who had led the beast ashore did not move. But one of her
companions swung up a hand, as if negligently waving the monster to a
stop. Between her first two digits was a disk. Thorvald caught at
Shann's arm.

"See that! It's a copy of the one I had; it must be!"

They were too far away to be sure it was a duplicate, but It was
coin-shaped and bone-white. And now the Wyvern swung it back and forth
in a metronome sweep. Fork-tail skidded to a stop, its head
beginning--reluctantly at first, and then, with increasing speed--to
echo that left-right sweep. This Wyvern had the sea beast under control,
even as her companion had earlier held it.

Chance dictated what happened next. As had her sister charmer, the
Wyvern began a backward withdrawal up the length of the beach, drawing
the sea thing in her wake. They were very close to the foot of the drop
above which the Terrans stood, fascinated, when the sand betrayed the
witch. Her foot slipped into a hole and she was thrown backward, her
control disk spinning out of her fingers.

At once the monster she had charmed shot forth its head, snapped at that
spinning trifle--and swallowed it. Then the fork-tail hunched in a
posture Shann had seen the wolverines use when